Building Venus Rockets
Visiting Venus can be a Space Mission after visiting Moon and Mars. Unlike Moon and Mars, Venus has a rather thick and dense atmosphere, increasing aerodynamic drag, resulting in easier entry, but much more difficult departure. Overall Design As mentioned above, Venus has a dense atmosphere, which would require more fuel. It is recommended a rocket to Venus would consist of at least five stages if Fuel Transfer mid-mission is not considered. 1st and 2nd stages These need to be powerful enough to send the entire rocket to Low Earth Orbit to wait for a Launch Window to Venus. The Titan Engine can be the first stage engine to lift up the entire rocket up to the Karman Line, then Hawk Engines or Broadsword L.F. Engines can bring the rocket to LEO. 3rd stage This stage and/or the previous stage will execute the transfer burn to Venus, alongside with Deep Space Maneuvers if required, then a retrograde burn to enter Venus orbit and start aerobraking. It may also be utilized to execute a burn within the atmosphere to slow down the remaining stages to below 250 m/s to use parachutes. 4th and 5th stages Similar to the first two stages, the 4th and possibly parts of 5th stage will bring the craft to the orbit. It may not be necessary to use heavy-lift engines like the Titan Engine as the remaining stage is much lighter than the entire rocket. The 5th stage will execute a burn to return to Earth, and land similarly to the Venus landing. Fuel Transfer It might be worthy to refuel the craft's 2nd or later stages with a Helping Vehicle or a Space Station. This can increase the fuel margin for the later stages, improving the likelihood of mission success. The first stage is not considered for fuel-transferring due to its overly high thrust and low efficiency. Fine-Tuning Fine-tuning the rocket can ease the difficulty of visiting Venus. Aerodynamics Both Earth and Venus have atmospheres (30 and 40 km respectively) and rather high gravitational acceleration (9.8 and 8.9 m/s respectively), making it challenging to leave their atmospheres. Improving the aerodynamics of the rocket can ease the process. Streamlining the Rocket Try making the rocket "A"-shaped, rather than "V" or "H" shaped. This can reduce the aerodynamic drag, so that it is easier to reach the orbits. Increase Aerodynamicness Note: Aerodynamic parts(e.g. Fairings and Aerodynamic Fuselage)s' function are disabled in 1.4. Adding fairings to cover Landers or unused stages will smooth out airflow of the craft. Nose Cones and its slanted version can be used on boosters to improve aerodynamics and save fuel for the mission. Optimizing TWR TWR is the Thrust-to-Weight-Ratio of a rocket. It is determined by Thrust ÷ (Weight × g) , where g is the gravitational constant of a planet, in this case, Earth or Venus. If the TWR is higher than 1, it can lift off of the ground. A higher TWR usually indicates the rocket can go further a one with a lower TWR. It is quite difficult to increase the number of engines due to limited building space and aesthetics. Instead, it is simpler to opt for optimizing the weight. Find out any unnecessary parts in your rocket(e.g. extra Structural Parts) and remove them. This can reduce the workload of the engines. Tips *Bring more fuel than needed to allow recoveries from accidents or fails. *Use parachutes instead executing engines burns to land can save fuel and the overall mission complexity. *Dump unnecessary weights to reduce fuel required. They include unused parts and empty stages. See Also * Going To Other Planets Category:Gameplay Category:Tutorial